Watteau’s drawings are notable for the way they capture the interiority of their subjects, often by focusing on states of repose. The men here, probably drawn from the same model, are immersed in a world of private experience, enjoying a moment of tranquility that defies the dehumanizing conditions of war. Two of the figures appear in other works in this exhibition: the soldier on the left, with his musket in a different position, in Halt of a Detachmentand the middle soldier in The Supply Train.

Paintings by the seventeenth-century Dutch artist Philips Wouwerman, a specialist in military camp scenes, were much sought after in early eighteenth-century Paris, and Watteau’s military works owe a clear debt to them. Like most of Wouwerman’s camp scenes, this painting offers a placid, picturesque image of war in which compositional unity reinforces a vision of social harmony.

Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684–1721)Studies of Foot Soldiers, a Drummer, and Two Cavaliers(verso),
ca. 1709–10
Red chalk
6 5/16 × 7 11/16 in. (16 x 19.5 cm)
National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh; Accepted by HM Government in Lieu of Inheritance Tax and allocated to The National Gallery of Scotland, 2010

This is one of Watteau’s earliest studies of soldiers. It is less technically sure than his later drawings, but his interest in the mundane aspects of military life is already evident. The marching soldiers face slightly different directions, each encapsulating an individual encounter between artist and model. None of the figures exactly matches those in any known painting.

Neither man here is recognizably a soldier — in fact, the seated man is an artist. But Watteau used the standing figure, adding a tricorne hat, in his Bivouac (ca. 1710), now in Moscow at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts.

This painting, which has darkened considerably over time, is one of Watteau’s earliest military scenes. Unlike the others, which focus on moments between the fighting, it shows a battle scene, with cannon fire dimly perceptible on the horizon. The main interest of the painting, however, is the encounter in the foreground: an officer thrusts his saber at a seated soldier as his female companion, possibly a prostitute, recoils and two soldiers on the other side of the composition look on calmly. The Halt, also in this exhibition, is its likely pendant.

This tightly packed scene shows soldiers and their hangers-on resting and socializing in a military camp. Various groups are spread out somewhat haphazardly across a stage-like terrain, which is anchored by a towering tree. The composition’s disunity makes the figures stand out individually, focusing our attention on their various interactions as they trade glances across the space of the picture. The poignancy of the painting derives from the way these looks do not seem entirely reciprocated, leaving the status of their relationships unresolved. The Line of March, also in this exhibition, is its likely pendant.

Watteau used the figures in this drawing in two other works in the exhibition: the two central figures appear, in reverse order, in Halt of a Detachment, and all four figures appear in The Halt. Though the three figures on the right were likely based on the same model, the way Watteau disposes the men on the page is suggestive, especially the exchange of glances between the kneeling man and the seated soldier with a musket. Yet, in deploying them in his paintings, the artist shuffled all but two of the figures, breaking some apart and placing others together in new relationships. This juxtaposition and recombination of independent elements on the canvas create the ambiguous interactions that make his military paintings so captivating.

Whether wives, mistresses, or prostitutes, women were not an uncommon sight in early modern military camps. Watteau used the seated woman with a veil, whose elegant demeanor would seem more suitable for a fête galante, in The Halt.

Watteau used the soldier in the middle in The Portal of Valenciennes. This is the only surviving drawing in a known location related to the painting, and the two works are shown together for the first time.

Watteau’s only known guard scene (as opposed to a march or camp scene), this is one of his best preserved paintings of military life. Suffused with golden light, two pairs of soldiers converse across the space of the picture, while the three other figures in the foreground have withdrawn into sleep or reverie. The enigmatic exchanges among these men transform an otherwise prosaic moment into a moving image of the social conditions of military life and the fragility of human connection. Despite its title, added in 1912, there is little evidence that the painting depicts the artist’s hometown of Valenciennes, where he returned for a brief visit in 1710.

This vigorous drawing is one of a series of studies, perhaps drawn in a single sitting, showing soldiers in three poses arranged in a semicircle. Here, as in the other related studies, the soldiers are positioned to suggest a sequence of movement in time and space. The figure on the far right was also used in Recruits Going to Join the Regiment.

Executed with a nervous, almost electric line, this scene of marching soldiers is a rare etching by Watteau after a now-lost painting. Watteau constructed the composition out of a series of studies (two of which are on view on either side of the etching) showing a soldier in three poses. He extracted individual figures and combined them in pairs along a graceful arabesque. The result makes little sense as a march — with the soldiers’ counterposed balletic movements, their procession would soon break apart — but the lack of connection between the pairs of soldiers, almost mirror images of each other, infuses the work with formal and psychological tension. The plate was later reworked by the engraver Henri-Simon Thomassin the Younger (1687–1741).

Part of Watteau’s series of studies of three soldiers in movement, this drawing is notable for the exaggerated elegance of the figures’ poses. The men here are similar to those in Recruits Going to Join the Regiment, but none match exactly.

This painting, which, like most of Watteau’s paintings, has darkened and abraded with age, is probably one of Watteau’s last military works. Formerly in the collection of Cardinal Luigi Valenti Gonzaga (1725–1808), a celebrated eighteenth-century art collector, it was only recently rediscovered. The disordered composition conveys something of the aimlessness of camp life, yet, as always, Watteau’s detached approach carries no moral judgment about war or its participants.

Watteau became one of the eighteenth century’s most celebrated artists in part through the dealer Jean de Jullienne’s efforts to have his entire oeuvre, both drawings and paintings, engraved shortly after his death. This engraving, after a now lost painting, is notable for the graceful arabesque of figures spread across the landscape. Two related drawings are on view in the exhibition: Three Studies of Resting Soldiersand Two Studies of Standing Soldiers. Recruits Going to Join the Regiment, also on view, is its likely pendant.

These soldiers are etched after two figures in the series of studies related to Recruits Going to Join the Regiment, on view in the exhibition. The soldier on the left comes from Three Studies of a Soldier from Behind, now in Berlin, and the other is taken from Three Views of a Soldier, One from Behind, which is in the exhibition. Julienne’s two-volume set of Watteau’s drawings allowed other artists to use his figures in their own compositions.

Pater was one of Watteau’s most important followers and, like his master, produced a number of military scenes in addition to fêtes galantes. This study of a soldier, cut from a larger sheet and preparatory for the painting Troops at Rest (Metropolitan Museum of Art), lacks the sense of corporeality that animates Watteau’s drawings but has its own elastic energy. The figure’s comic mien, though infused with a decidedly eighteenth-century French elegance, owes more to the example of bawdy seventeenth century Dutch guardroom scenes than to Watteau’s psychologically acute approach.

Along with Jean-Baptiste Joseph Pater, Lancret was Watteau’s other great follower, and his military scenes are near pastiches of his master’s. Many of the figures in this painting are copies after Watteau’s or else closely derive from them. Yet, unlike Watteau, Lancret deploys his figures to generate charming compositional arrangements rather than interpersonal encounters with social and psychological complexity.